by kps
Though he let go of her gently enough, dropping her the short distance to the ground, Jenny swatted at his 'arm, breathing heavily as she glared up at him. Dev swung his leg over the gelding's head and slid to the ground beside her, his anger a match for hers. "Just what were you trying to prove by taking Faro? If he'd stumbled, there's no way you wouldn't have broken your neck!" He used his sleeve to brush away the sweat beading his forehead, waiting impatiently for her explanation.
"Did you have to interfere?" Jenny asked resentfully. "I knew what I was doing!"
"And what was that, trying to kill yourself-or did you just want to get thrown badly enough to lose the baby?"
The blood drained from Jenny's already pale face. She started to sputter a reply, then whirled away from him. Dev's hands closed on her shoulders and she struggled valiantly against their strength, but he held her too firmly for her to escape. Tears streamed down her face, but she refused to look up at him. "Please-leave me alone! This is my problem, not yours," she wept.
Dev gave her body a shake, a hard jerky shake to stop the hysteria building within her.
Beneath his hands he could feel her trembling. "Jenny, you're handling it all wrong. Let me help-at least talk to me about how you feel!"
"I ... I can't," she protested in a wavering voice. Then her shoulders slumped in defeat, and all the fight went out of her body. She started to sob, covering her face with her hands. Dev hesitated for a moment at the misery reflected in the sound, then picked her up and carried her to a nearby stand of oaks, setting her down with her back against one of the larger trees.
Finally, after her flood of helpless sobbing had ceased, Jenny felt calmer, more reasonable.
She looked up, wiping away the last trace of tears. "I'm sorry about taking Faro … I … I didn't think-he could have been hurt." Devshrugged, "He's able to look out for himself-a lot like me, stubborn and willful." Then there was a short pause before Dev spoke again, searching for just the right words. "Look, Jenny, Sally was just telling me about … about the baby when you rode off. What are you-"
"Sally! How did she know? I only found out ... oh, God," Jenny moaned, covering her face again, feeling it flame with embarrassment. Her voice sounded muffled from beneath her hands.
"What else does she know?"
"Nothing-I swear! In fact, she was just chewing me out, warning me I ought to 'do right' by you." Jenny took her hands away, staring at him. Did Sally think that in the short time Jenny'd known him, she'd become so enamoured that she was sleeping with him? Either Sally felt she had no morals or that Dev was such an accomplished lady-killer that he'd taken her by storm!
"Now,don't look like that," Dev ordered, seeking to forestall an angry outburst. "Sal doesn't know a thing about what happened in Helena or Denver. She just knows me and figured …
well, she thought as beautiful as you are ... she just assumed I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off of you."
"Oh." Jenny was growing more calm now, even bemused as she studied Dev's face. He looked a little unsettled by the topic of conversation. "And did you tell her that you'd been a perfect gentleman-that such thoughts had never entered your head?" Dev had been absently chewing on a blade of sweet grass, and he took it out of his mouth now, twirling it between his fingers. Then he turned and looked into her eyes.
"No, I can't say as I did. Wouldn't have been the whole truth."
"But you have been a gentleman, I can attest to that!" Jenny protested, then as she realized what he'd meant, she blushed and looked away from his steady, piercing regard.
"I'm no saint, Jenny Bryant, and I've never been one for denying myself what I've wanted.
Until now." Jenny looked at him again, her embarrassment forgotten in the wake of that intriguing statement. "And what makes this time different?" It was Dev's turn to feel unsure, and he shifted nervously, glancing away toward the sky. They were getting into a subject better left unexplored. "It's getting late, Jen. Maybe we'd better start back, hmmm?"
"Not until you answer my question, Devlan Cantrel !" Jenny had reached out her hand to touch his arm; beneath her fingers she could feel the power of his muscles, the leashed strength of corded sinews.
Tawny-gold eyes met blue, and Dev relented. "Okay. First, I've known your parents for a long time, and l owe them a lot. Seducing their only daughter is no way to repay them. Second, I couldn't see you welcoming my attentions when you just got over having a bunch of animals after you . using you for their own grubby satisfactions."
Almost angry for some strange reason,Jenny snatched her hand away. "I appreciate your concern for my feelings, Dev, but I think you could credit me with the common sense to be able to tell the difference between you and the others!" She frowned and added, "You're not as much of a callous rogue as you think you are."
"Well, if I'm not so terrible," Dev said, "then marry me."
"You're crazy!" Jenny asserted, then, peering closer, she commented wonderingly, "You're serious, aren't you?"
Dev grinned and nodded, catching Jenny's hand as she started to rise. "Now I won't leave until I get my answer. Why should the idea be so alarming?"
Jenny's mouth had a stubborn set to it, but Dev appeared just as obstinate. She attempted to pull away, then gave in and sat back on her knees. "Because this isn't your problem," she explained, "it's mine and I don't need it complicated any further by your pity! I don't want you feeling sorry for me, Dev. I … I'll find some way of dealing with it myself."
"Like riding off, trying to break your neck ?" Dev was immediately sorry for the hastily snapped sarcasm when Jenny blanched and caught her bottom lip between her teeth. His offer had come as a shock to-her, no less than it had to him, but he was sincere. What other choice did she have? Any woman who tried to raise a child out of wedlock bore the brunt of society's displeasure.
"I wasn't thinking then," Jenny defended her actions. Now that she'd had time to consider the fact of her pregnancy, she was appalled by what she'd tried to do. "I just ... reacted.
Really, Dev, you needn't worry-I'll work it out-"
"You're still not thinking, girl!" Dev interrupted. "Exactly what are you going to tell your parents? You insisted you never wanted Mariah to know about Denver." His voice lost its strident insistence, changing to a persuasive tone. "If we get married, she'll never know, never wonder." The idea of being tied down to responsibilities had never appealed to Dev.
So why, he asked himself silently, was he sitting here, demanding a positive answer from a girl he'd known for such a brief time? Maybe he was crazy.
"If it makes you feel any better, we'll agree to go our separate ways once the kid is born.
We'll sleep in separate rooms-and if I happen to see a girl I fancy, I'll be free to go after her …
discreetly, of course. That makes it a lot more businesslike, doesn't it? We'll have an arrangement, and the only thing we'll share is the name Cantrell." Dev held his breath, wondering if she'd still resist. Damn, but she was independent, even when she was in such a vulnerable position!
' I'll agree on those terms, but it still doesn't seem fair to you," Jenny said hesitantly. "I certainly wouldn't want to ... compromise your freedom in any way. With you taking the blame for my seduction, it will look bad enough."
Dev grinned. "I'll just say it was ... my pleasure," he teased, wondering why he felt so jubilant over her acceptance. Well, she needed help, didn't she? But that was only a part of it. Jenny was beautiful, and she'd be his wife. Would he regret the suggestion to sleep apart? He'd already started to, he realized, and abruptly banished the subject from his thoughts, rising to his feet and pulling her up with him. "We'd better get back now. It will relieve Sally's conscience to know that justice has been done!"
The gelding was grazing free some twenty-five yards away, and Dev suggested that Jenny ride back to the house with him. "That is, if you trust me, ma'am," he ammended with a droll expression. "I've been a rogue in my time, but that's past. I'm almost respectable, now that we're en
gaged."
Jenny smiled, then laughed, "Well, don't become too respectable, Mr. Cantrell! I like you fine just the way you are." Dev helped her onto Faro's back, untied his reins, and in an effortlessly fluid movement, jumped up behind her. He seemed in no hurry to return, though, with his arms curved around her narrow waist, and let Faro amble toward the gelding on his own sweet time. Gathering the mount's reins, Dev pulled back on Faro's bridle and turned him toward home.
Eight
Marriage had not changed Jenny's independence or made her into a docile, home-oriented wife. Neither had her pregnancy, as Dev found out soon after the ceremony was over. The local Justice of the Peace had just departed from the small celebration Sally had organized when Dev, noting that Jenny looked a little worn by the excitement, suggested she lie down and rest.
"But I haven't time, Dev," Jenny replied. "My clothes are packed for the trip but I still have to see to the box of medicines I'm taking. If we're going to leave in another day for the village, I don't want to take the chance of forgetting something important."
"What makes you think ..." Dev was flabbergasted by the realization that she still intended to make the proposed journey to Gray Hawk's village.."Jenny, are you crazy?" She looked at him with those wide, innocent gray eyes of hers, questioning his incredulous manner as though he were the one thinking irrationally. "All right," he snapped, growing angry then. "I believed it was a good idea, too. I hope you remember that fact-but nothing's the same, Jen, you're married now and ... and I refuse to let you go traipsing off into the wilds, especially in your condition!"
Perhaps he hadn't been tactful in the way he'd phrased the order. Later, when they were actually at the village, Dev wondered whether she'd actually felt up to the rigors of travel or whether she'd just rebelled and grown stubborn because of his own stubborn insistence that she stay home. It really made no difference; they were here now, and Jenny's obstinance had, for the time being, won over his own.
Despite the fact that she was Dev's wife and Mariah's daughter, Gray Hawk had not given Jenny a warm reception. Oh, at first he'd welcomed her as his adopted son's bride, but when he learned of her plans to use the white man's medicines on his people, his manner had turned icily cold. As long as she slept in his son's lodge, she could stay among the tribe, and all the rights of her position as his daughter-in-law would be granted her. "Do not test my patience by bringing forth your remedies and the poisons bottled by your people," he'd commanded haughtily, fixing Dev with a stare that warned him to keep his wife in line.
"Many years ago the whites were good enough to trade us warm blankets for the winter's chill. There were many praises sung to their kindness, their generous natures ... until the disease the blankets carried had wiped away whole tribes, leaving infants without parents, old fathers without sons. I will protect my own people from harm, remember that, wife of my son!"
Frustrated, swept by the changing moods of pregnancy, Jenny was alternately testy and resentful. Last night, the tenth after their arrival, she had railed against the adamant, unfair attitude Gray Hawk had taken; yet this morning, bright and early, she was off to join the women doing their wash in the stream, confident that by offering her friendship, she might win them over and, ultimately, influence their chief.
Dev wiped the sweat from his brow,wondering how she was doing. He was bare to the waist, dressed only in buckskins and the traditional, black-soled moccasins, and even so the midsummer's heat was plaguing him. With a grin, he noted that he'd lived too long in white men's houses. He was used to the many windows that caught a breeze and circulated the air. And Jenny, how was she faring in the sultry, humid heat? She'd adopted the Blackfoot squaw's loose, soft-kid blouse and calf-length skirt and the knee-length buckskin boots that would protect her legs from the scratches of brambles.
The stream wasn't far, and Dev's long, loping stride brought him there in five minutes. He paused on a hillock above it, surprised to find Jenny working alongside the squaws, pounding energetically, if somewhat awkwardly, at the laundry spread out on a smooth, well-worn boulder lying half in the water. He grinned again, amused by her willingness to try the task-Jenny'd always had servants to do such work at home. She looked almost Indian, with her long black hair trailing loosely over her shoulders, tied back from her forehead with a thin, leather band. The women were laughing in relaxed acceptance of Jenny's presence before they realized he was there, arms folded as he watched. The laughter quieted to a few shy giggles, and finally Jenny looked up-and smiled, wiping away a few drops of water that had splashed against her cheek with the back of her wrist.
One girl, a beauty by any man's standards and bolder than the others, moved to take the washing away from her, whispering something into her ear that brought a becoming blush to Jenny's face. She stood up carefully and came over to Dev, slipping her arm within his. When his brows raised in a questioning arch, Jenny tugged at his arm. A few feet away, she whispered, "Fox Tails insisted that my place was with my husband." She giggled and put a hand to her mouth to cover the sound. "I think she was really just looking to save herself some extra work. I worked a little too hard to get her husband's shirt clean; I'm afraid I pounded a tiny hole in the buckskinl"
Dev joined her laughter, then patted her arm. "I'm sure she realized your intentions were good. Jen, You know, even I'm surprised at how well you've settled in ... just goes to show you how much I know! Anyone would think you'd been born and raised up here, instead of
..." "Instead of a plush townhouse in London?" Jenny finished his thoughts aloud. "Well, it shows how much you know about me ... or my background, dear husband! I entered the world in San Francisco one foggy day in January, and the place was the apartment suite behind a saloon called The Sunburst!" Dev looked so surprised at the news, so stunned that his expression drew Jenny's laughter again. "Is that so terrible to admit? Mama doesn't like the fact bandied about, but I understand she was one of the first women dealers there ...
quite popular, too, until she was forced to quit because of her condition."
At the word condition, both Jenny and Dev glanced at her still flat belly, and Jenny frowned.
She was about three months along, but it would be a while yet until she began to show. At least her bouts of morning sickness were gone now, that was one consolation! The two of them walked on in silence now, following the stream bed as it curled around a bend, away from the curious glances of the squaws.
Finally they reached a place where the stream widened, deepening in the center where the water bubbled white and foam-crested as it coursed over its rock-strewn bed. Dev wasn't sure why he wanted to keep her at his side, why he didn't want to let her return to the female companionship she'd seemed to be enjoying. But it was quiet here, and she'd done enough work for one day. Jenny wasn't here to wear herself down doing somebody else's laundry. In the shade of a large low-hanging oak that grew half out of the water's edge, he settled her down to rest. Jenny, sitting comfortably on a portion of the huge, gnarled oak root that curled up out of the water, thought
how inviting the water looked, so cool and running crystal clear. She would have loved to take a swim, but with Dev here ... well, even if he was her husband, she couldn't ... Jenny blushed at the thought of taking off her blouse and skirt with him watching. Despite the fact that their vows had been exchanged, Dev had kept to his bargain, sleeping in a separate room and even now allowing her time to undress before slipping back into the lodge to sleep beside her.
"If you want to swim," Dev said, breaking into her thoughts almost as though he read her mind and grinning to reveal a dimple she'd never noticed before. "I promise to keep my back turned!"
"Ah ... I think not, Dev," Jenny replied, blushing even more as she stuttered, trying to think of a logical excuse to avoid letting him think she was too shy. "I … umm ... don't think it would be good for the baby-I don't want to catch cold!"
The reason behind the excuse was so obvious, they both began to laugh. Catch cold, in ninety-degree
weather, with waves of heat undulating off the parched, hard-baked ground?
"Well, at least take your boots off and cool your toes in the water," Dev said fondly, still chuckling to himself. Suddenly he had an idea-one that would serve two purposes, cooling him off and keeping her entertained.
"How'd you like to learn how to catch fish, barehanded, Indian style?" Jenny nodded, delighted with the idea. Even though it was considered woman's work, he promised also to show her how to cook the trout he caught. He unlaced the thongs that secured her fringed, fawn-colored boots so that Jenny could dip first her toes and finally her feet to the ankles in the icy-cold stream.
The feeling was so refreshing, she looked up to thank Dev for suggesting the more modest method of cooling off. He was entering the stream already, his attention sharply focused as he carefully waded out toward the rush of white water, and the words of appreciation died in her throat as she took a deep breath and held it. Dev had stripped off his buckskins and now wore nothing but the simple breechcloth that had hung over them earlier. His muscles rippled in the sunlight that filtered through the overhanging branches of the trees lining the stream, high-lighting the lean curves of his nearly nude body. Knowing she shouldn't stare so, yet too fascinated by the perfect, sinuous strength and grace of her husband's form to turn her eyes away, Jenny felt a strange, stirring sense of desire as she watched Dev move into position.
"You watching?" he called back. Then, wondering at the long pause before she stuttered that she was, Dev glanced at her, and, reflected in the slow smile that spread across his face, was acknowledgment of what he'd seen in her eyes. To spare .her any embarrassment, he said nothing and turned to concentrate on his task.
Dev bent slowly, his eyes watching the water for the distinctive flash of silver-blue that would indicate a passing trout. His hands were poised just above the water, ready to strike in a split second. As he concentrated, Dev worried that he might make a fool of himself in front of Jenny. It'd been quite a while since he'd done this. What if he wasn't quick enough any longer?
